Conventional computerized devices, such as personal computers, laptop computers, and the like are able to track the source of a printed document, for example, by printing a separate cover sheet along with the printed document. The separate cover sheet contains information such as the account from which the document was printed (i.e. the user name of the user who printed the document), a timestamp indicating the date and time the document was printed, the document name, the absolute pathname of the document (i.e. where on the user's computer, the document resides), the number of pages in the document, and the printer name of the printer to which the document was sent.
The separate cover sheet, containing information related to the printing of the document, is especially useful when several users are printing documents to a shared printer. The separate cover sheet serves as a separator between the documents enabling the users to differentiate where one document ends, and the next document begins. The separate cover sheet also serves to aid a single user in identifying his or her different printed documents when multiple documents have all been queued up on a printer.